Right hemispheric dominance in processing of unconscious negative emotion.

Full Abstract

Right hemispheric dominance in unconscious emotional processing has been suggested, but remains controversial. This issue was investigated using the subliminal affective priming paradigm combined with unilateral visual presentation in 40 normal subjects. In either left or right visual fields, angry facial expressions, happy facial expressions, or plain gray images were briefly presented as negative, positive, and control primes, followed by a mosaic mask. Then nonsense target ideographs were presented, and the subjects evaluated their partiality toward the targets. When the stimuli were presented in the left, but not the right, visual fields, the negative primes reduced the subjects' liking for the targets, relative to the case of the positive or control primes. These results provided behavioral evidence supporting the hypothesis that the right hemisphere is dominant for unconscious negative emotional processing.

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Author information

Author/s: Sato, Wataru (W); Aoki, Satoshi (S);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmachi, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan. L50158(-atsign-)sakura.kudpc.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Brain and cognition (Brain Cogn), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Dec; vol 62 (issue 3) : pp 261-6

Dates: Created 2006/11/13; Completed 2007/01/11;

PMID: 16899333, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Dominance, Cerebral - physiology
Emotions - physiology
Facial Expression
Humans
Male

Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Photic Stimulation
Reference Values
Subliminal Stimulation
Unconscious (Psychology)
Visual Fields - physiology

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